INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO FOUNDATIONAL LITERACY: THE EFFECTS OF FLIPPED CLASSROOM AND FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT ON SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS' WRITING PERFORMANCE IN NIGERIA

This study investigated the effects of flipped classroom and formative assessment on senior secondary school two students’ writing performance in Makurdi, Nigeria. A quasi-experimental design involving three groups (flipped classroom with formative assessment, flipped classroom only, and traditional instruction) was adopted. A sample of 146 Senior Secondary II students drawn from four government schools participated in the study during the 2024/2025 academic session. Data were collected using a Writing Achievement Test (WAT), which assessed content, organization, grammar and mechanics, and coherence. Descriptive statistics and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) were employed for data analysis to respectively answer the research questions and test the corresponding hypotheses. Findings revealed that students taught using the flipped classroom and formative assessment approaches significantly outperformed those taught with the traditional method. Specifically, the flipped classroom group achieved the highest mean gain (53.12), followed by the formative assessment group (22.00), while the traditional group had the least (3.35) mean scores. ANCOVA results confirmed significant differences across groups (p < 0.05), with instructional strategy accounting for substantial proportions of variance in writing performance. The findings further showed that gender played a role in students’ writing performance when exposed to flipped classroom and formative assessment strategies, suggesting that both male and female students benefited significantly from the innovative approaches; however, there were observable differences in their levels of improvement. The study concluded that integrating flipped classroom and formative assessment strategies fosters active engagement, feedback, and improved writing competence among secondary school students. With this result, the study recommended that English language teachers should adopt and institutionalize these innovative, learner-centered approaches to enhance foundational literacy in Nigerian schools.